Computer application programs are used in all aspects of business, industry and academic endeavors. There is a large and diverse segment of workers and consumers that must interface with these applications. Conventionally the developer of an application program must target a skill level of a group of potential users so as to create the optimum "ease of use" interface. Of necessity there has to be some trade-off between increased function versus such ease of use, i.e. the greater the operator's control, the more complex the interface. Usually the program developer has to anticipate the level of this trade-off.
Nowhere does the program developer's choices in designing interfaces have a greater impact than in the control of production operations. This vast area includes the printing trades, the production of parts, tools and dies, integrated circuit manufacturing and processing and chemical industry production as just a few examples. Because such production involves repetitive functions continuously performed over relatively long periods of time, the computerization of such operations takes advantage of the strengths of the computer. With the advance of computer control in production, the operator skill levels required for many operations has been reduced, and in areas where high production skills are still required, the productivity of skilled workers has been greatly increased.
However, with this ever increasing use of computer functions in production operations comes an attendant downside which must be dealt with. The display interfaces through which the operators must control the production could become more and more complex with up to hundreds of functional options and dozens of system levels. The result is the productive times and more limited skills of the lower skilled operators may be drained in computer functions, and the creative energies of the workers skilled in the production technologies exhausted in such computer functions with the result that their technical skills are diminished.
Some production operations have found a solution to this problem through the use of various software development and service organizations to design specific purpose software programs with specific display interfaces tailored to the specific production needs and operator skills. This approach may be viable in production operations where the runs are long term and of the same type with few changes. However, it is likely to be too expensive to production organizations such as large scale printing operations which have to deal with a variety of modified operations from job to job.
Copending application, "Data Processor Controlled Display System With a Plurality of Selectable Basic Function Interfaces for the Control of Varying Types of Customer Requirements and With Additional Customized Functions", Claudia Alimpich et al. (Attorney Docket No. AM9-97-153), assigned to the same assignee as the present invention and filed on the same day as the present invention offers a solution to the above problems by providing production operations control program which may be distributed "off-the-shelf" and provides the user with a plurality of basic ease-of-use interfaces each respectfully directed to a different type of production operation together with the means to readily customize the selected interface through the addition of selected functions.